Oct 13 Social Media Influencers And Why I Have Unfollowed Loads.

This is a subject that has been on my mind for a while now, so now that I am a little more organised I can get this written. Grab a cup of tea/coffee and sit back I feel it might be a long one. The word Influencer is a word I don’t like, it makes me feel I am not making my own choices. It makes me feel that my choice is been taken away from me to a certain amount. That these bloggers/ Instagrammers have been chosen to Influence my decisions over the products I use, the clothes I buy or even the food choices I make. The top brands in the world choose these Influencers due to their follower counts and interaction on their accounts (sometimes that doesn’t even matter). Some are just chosen on their follower count. The companies pick these talented people to basically sell their products to the likes of you and me. Their feeds are a near constant stream of products that they were send, have tried or really like to use but mostly have just been sent.

So to be considered an Influencer you need the numbers because the more you have the more the company can make from you if your followers start to buy some of the products you have in your stories or blog posts. This is where it starts to annoy me, I know everyone needs to make a living and believe me if I could get paid to blog even if it was just in Chocolate I would be first to do it. What kills me is when the blogger you have loved to follow or Instagrammer starts to work with brands or they start getting things in the post and all their posts or stories end up being about the products. Why can’t bloggers stay true to where they started, now some do but to be honest it’s very few. They get bitten by the bug and just can’t help themselves. Everything turns into a sales pitch. I wouldn’t mind at all if they said I received this product a month or two ago and it’s good/ not good . At least then you could make a choice, an informed one.

There are a few Irish bloggers who I have followed for years and to be honest I just can’t watch their stories anymore. Every single one is some sort of product placement of some sort. Then you have the bloggers who all get the same products in the post the same day and they all show it at the same time. But some declare that they were sent it or they are working with the company and then you have the ones who just sneak it into a photo or story and don’t say anything about it. We know you were sent it because half the blogging nation were sent the same product on the same day. How can companies think this is going to Influence us to buy their products, I often wonder this. I might just believe what a blogger is telling me if they got the product a month or more before, actually used it day to day and then said if they liked it or not. I don’t listen to, read about or watch stories when they all contain the same products on the same day/ few days apart anymore.

One example I saw lately of this was a group of Irish bloggers all received the same kids milk on the same week. When I saw the first bloggers stories I thought this looks interesting. A milk for kids full of everything they need. They had all the right hashtags for the post and it was something I was going to look more into. That was until I saw three more bloggers all with the same product in their stories. The next one had the hashtag hidden in the background of their story, the next had just half the carton in their story and no hashtag and the next blogger was pouring it into her evening coffee and no hashtag either. The 1st blogger had caught my attention but the rest just ruined it and I would not buy that product. Now if they had used it for a month, drank it everyday and came on then to tell me if it was good or bad I might have been sold. Brands I think need to look harder at what is happening to their product and looking to see just what consumers think of all these product placements. I understand that this is one of the ways Influencers earn money.

I do feel sorry for the younger people who are easily Influenced just like the big companies are hoping for. They see all their favourite bloggers receive the same product the same day and then feel they need it. With no one having tried it out for at least a few weeks to see what it is like. It is a shame the blogging world has come to this. Surely there must be a way for brands to work with bloggers in a more real way that will have a more powerful effect on their viewers. I understand its all about the sale for the brand but this is not a fair way to sell products. I miss the old days of Instagram and blogging when you could trust what a blogger told you about a product but not anymore they have ruined it with huge product drops to every blogger in the country over a certain following. The amount of things over the years of blogging I have received I can count on one hand. I don’t get products sent to me because to be honest my followers are way to low to be of any benefit to a large company. Any time I have ever received anything I have been completely honest about whatever it was but only after I would have used, eaten or read whatever it was. I would hate any of my followers to ever think I was trying to sell them anything and even though there isn’t many of us each one is important even if the big brands don’t think so.

So thats my rant over , numerous bloggers unfollowed again because of the constant placement of products or ads selling something. The only good thing is my feed is now full of bloggers who I could trust who so far haven’t been taken by the Influencer bug.

How does this type of marketing make you feel ? Do you trust them when they tell you about a product? What would make you buy a product they were showing ?